The key to any healthy diet is going to be incorporating a lot of fresh whole foods. So, fruits and vegetables being the cornerstone of your diet. I mean, ideally, if you're looking at grains, those grains should be whole, unprocessed grains - things like oatmeal, like quinoa, like brown rice. And then your proteins, ideally, being non-animal proteins that are unprocessed. And then, there are a lots of online resources and cookbooks in this day and age for good plant-based recipes. Changing your diet gradually.

I have seen some wonderful things happen to my patients who’ve adopted plant-based diets. Of patients who have had heart issues, of those who have gone plant-based in the course of my 11-year career, I have not seen a single one of them have another heart attack, or stroke, or need bypass surgery, or need any further stents. But around that same time I also learned about the work of Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, who demonstrated in their research that a plant-based diet can actually reverse even the most severe of heart disease.

Dr. Heather Shenkman, A vegan American interventional cardiologist, who specializes in the catheter- based treatment of structural heart diseases. While Dr. Shenkman helps her patients by clearing blocked arteries via angioplasty surgery and stenting, she also encourages them to adopt healthy lifestyles. She has even written a book for the public on the topic called, “The Vegan Heart Doctor’s Guide to Reversing Heart Disease, Losing Weight, and Reclaiming Your Life.” So, one interesting fact is that places in the world where people eat more vegetables, they have less heart disease and less cancer.

I think that plant-based eating helps what we call the endothelium - the lining of the artery helping blood flow smoothly through the arteries. I make it a point at each patient visit, unless there’s somebody who is critically ill, I make it a point to incorporate something about lifestyle, and also to find out what their eating style is. And I think if you really talk to people, and you give them the information, you’d be surprised. People who have knowledge and know that doing something is going to be good for their health and help them to feel better and live longer.

I don’t trust the fact that they want to genetically engineer livestock so that it genetically engineers out the mothering instinct, so you can separate a mother from its child, and it won’t feel any sadness. So instead of organizing our agriculture industry around nature, they’re trying to organize nature around the agricultural industry, and they want to genetically engineer livestock and insects, and fish and trees, and algae, and bacteria, and fungus. They want to replace nature. So we urge people to go organic, organic is number one, non-GMO is number two.

There are many countries that don't allow the planting of GMOs, but very few that say you shouldn’t eat GMOs. Taiwan (Formosa) passed a law saying you can’t serve GMOs in school meals. If GMO foods have been grown in our soil, can that soil eventually be cleaned so that it becomes completely GMO-free? You have the GMO problem, you have the Bt toxin problem, and you have the Roundup or herbicide problem. So have GMOs entered the oceans? Are they affecting sea creatures? And so yes, they’ve certainly entered the ocean. So you have the chemical pollution and you have the GMO pollution.

There are several principles for a healthy vegan diet. The first one is to eat whole foods. Some foods are advertised as vegan but they may be heavily processed. For example, sugary drinks and some vegan snacks may be vegan, but they are not healthy. So, on a regular basis, we encourage everyone to eat more whole grains, fresh vegetables, and fruit, nuts, seeds, and the like. In general, we should eat real food instead of those processed products. The second principle is to pay attention to several nutrients that vegans need. It is necessary to be exposed to the Sun for 10 to 15 minutes a day.

And so we decided to survey our list at the Institute for Responsible Technology. And 3,256 people reported getting better from 28 different conditions when they switched to non GMO and largely organic diets. That the number one condition was digestive problems, and number two was fatigue, number three was overweight or obesity, and number four was clouding of consciousness. Number five was mood problems, such as anxiety or depression, and then there’s food allergies and sensitivity, and every one of those is 50% or above.

Dr. Chiu explains. The hospital’s meal system has several major therapeutic dietary plans - for example, meals for diabetes, meals for kidney disease, and high and low-protein meals. The hospital has several established meals, which means doctors can choose the meal that is best for each patient. Plant proteins are actually very good. Aside from their protein content, plants also provide a lot of antioxidants and anti-cancer phytochemicals that meat does not have.

These experts will discuss the relationship between diet and health and ways to elevate the wellness of the community through education and preventive medicine. The Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, was started by the Venerable Dharma Master Cheng Yen in 1966. Opinion on Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital's 10-year study that found that by giving up a meat diet and changing to vegetarianism, people can avoid chronic diseases. But you really need to improve the level of health in a country, an individual, or a whole district. Speaking out about how to make an impact on policy, on education, conveying the right concept on health.

In addition to considering the results gathered from the four diagnostic methods of TCM, that of visual inspection, listening and smelling, verbal inquiry and physical palpation, when assessing a patient’s condition, a traditional Chinese medical doctor will use the Eight Principles of TCM to further investigate and discover the cause of a disease. The “Eight Principles” refer to “yin and yang,” “exterior and interior,” “cold and heat,” and “deficiency and excess.” However, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners believe that the vegetarian diet is good for health, because in the “Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic,” a lot of emphasis is placed on meat-eating being a potential cause of various kinds of diseases.

The third diagnostic tool, the “inquiring diagnosis.”It helps us to confirm his physical situation. The fourth diagnostic method. Just by placing three fingers on the artery located on the wrist of the patient, a Chinese medicine doctor can detect signs of illness and certain changes inside the body. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, pulse-talking of the left hand would gain information about the person’s heart, liver, and kidney, whereas that of the right hand, the lung, spleen, and stomach. Traditional Chinese Medicine, whereas TCM examines the invisible aspect of the person. Traditional Chinese Medicine uses pulse-taking to observe the formless qi.

We are honored to feature the insightful perspectives of Dr. Lee Yu-Ming, a vegan TCM physician in Hong Kong, that will provide us with an introduction to the age-old Chinese healing art that he practices. Traditional Chinese Medicine’s origin dates back thousands of years, and this science emphasizes health maintenance and prevention of illness. This healing system relies on four diagnostic methods and is based on eight key principles. The diagnostic procedures are used to observe the signs and symptoms of an illness, while the principles are employed to summarize and analyze the observations to help the doctor find out the cause of the disease.

Dr. Blake, a vegan, has a doctorate in holistic health specializing in nutritional biochemistry as well as naturopathic medicine. Currently, he is the research director at the Neuroscience Nutrition Foundation in Haiku, Hawaii, USA and lead advisor for the Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine. He has taught classes at the University of Hawaii on Maui, Stanford University in California, and the Boston University Medical Center in Massachusetts. Dr. Blake is the author of “Healing Medicine” and the reference book “Fats and Oils Demystified,” as well as many other significant publications such as “Arthritis Relief: How Nutrition Can Help with Pain and Inflammation.”

Dr. Blake, a vegan, has a doctorate in holistic health specializing in nutritional biochemistry as well as naturopathic medicine. I think that with a good natural approach, a nutritional approach, we can lower this number and help people who already have arthritis. One of the best things we can do for hip or knee arthritis is to lose a little bit of weight. The best approach to arthritis is to make sure you’re getting your mega-3s, the plant-based omega-3s. So, get enough flax seeds ground up and enough walnuts in your diet.

During the Dragon Boat season, it is traditionally a time in China to develop balance and harmony between the mind, body, and nature to build up disease resistance to ensure wellness over summer. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine theories, we must refrain from doing three things to maintain good health when the yang energy is at its peak. First, we must abstain from raw and cold foods in the evening, as they are hard to digest. Second, we should not take cold water baths. Our sweat glands and skin pores are open in the hot summer months. Taking a cold shower will make our body vulnerable to cold air, leading to an imperceptible loss of our yang energy. Third, we should not sleep exposed to the cold air at night.

Fortunately, there is good news for those who have experienced adverse effects from pain medications and are looking for alternatives to pain relief. For people who prefer natural healing, a list of options proven to be helpful include tai chi, Qigong, and yoga for movement-based therapies, ginger and turmeric for herbal remedies and meditation for mind-body medicine. Treatment that involves physical manipulation includes osteopathy and chiropractic. The advantage of movement-based therapies is that they can be done almost anywhere, at any time, and are free.

A change from the basic diet of most people in America to a plant-based diet will oftentimes eliminate the elevation of fats in blood sugar, and it will eliminate the fat in the liver. And I think that eliminating animal protein, animal fat, has been definitely shown to reduce cardiovascular disease, would obviously also reduce other kinds of disease. Politically, I think at some point the dairy industry and the beef industry have to really be put in their place. Just like the cigarette industry has been forced to say these products cause cancer. And I think the same thing has to be mentioned by both of those industries.

I have recently become acquainted with the importance of diet in treating the diseases that I treat. And so if we can somehow stem that by changing our diets and our exercise patterns, it will save us a lot of livers for patients who have congenital diseases or diseases that were certainly nothing to do with their diets or their lifestyle. Dairy, in particular, is a major cause of gas, belching, reflux, and abdominal pain. So, I think the dairy elimination can start to do wonders for patients who have upper gastrointestinal illnesses. Plant-based diets are hugely filled with fiber and nutrients that encourage water excretion by the colon.

If you look at the top 15 causes of death, a plant-based diet can help to either improve, arrest or even - in some case - reverse 14 of the top 15 causes of death. Now, the only cause of death that it doesn't have any influence over is an accidental death, like a car crash. So the plant-based diet is really great for health, but not a lot of medical institutions promote it. My hope is that in the years to come, with the increased knowledge that we have, that more and more medical professionals will start to include the plant-based diet within their recommendations.